Jacob’s face hardened. “He decided to shut you up.”
She nodded, still hardly able to grasp that he would hurt her deliberately. Believing he could be capable of stealing had torn a hole in her heart. Discovering he could actually try to kill her…She could still hardly grasp what had happened. The ultimate betrayal by a man she’d once thought she loved. “Blane came by my condo, calm as ever. He had something for Evan in the Suburban, a present for Evan’s fourth birthday since Blane would be traveling for work.”
Her mind flashed with so many kaleidoscope memories. Evan clutching his favorite blanket with quilted airplane squares, the edges now ragged. Blane’s earnest blue eyes, so like Evan’s.
How could the father of her precious baby boy be totally bad? Surely his love for Evan was one pure part left in Blane, a symbol of what had been good in their marriage. “A little voice deep inside me whispered that he was up to something, but Evan wanted his toy and Blane. I needed to believe there was something honest left inside him. Do you know what I mean?”
“Like wanting to believe Chase could be there for Emily.” Jacob’s eyes warmed as he finally seemed to see her. “Yeah, Dee…Deirdre. I understand.”
Deirdre. Not Dee.
Those last four inches might as well have been a mile. She wanted his arms around her as she shared the most painful part, his strong arms, rather than a sweatshirt substitute.
Damn her pride, she couldn’t make herself ask. “He forced me into the Suburban and started driving north, stopping here our first night on the road.” She shuddered to think of the red dress he’d made her wear in one of his twisted mind games. “We left early the next morning before dawn, and I was afraid he might make it to Canada. I tried to plan how to get help from the border patrol—then the snowstorm started and Blane made his move. He tossed me out of the car on an abandoned road.”
I’ll kill him before I let you see him again, Deirdre.
The horror, the fear, the utter helplessness choked her, fresh as if it had happened only moments before. “I hit my head, I think. I must have. Mostly I remember fighting to get to my feet as he drove away with my child.”
Jacob reached to stroke her hair. She ducked, too raw, too vulnerable to accept the comfort that would send her crying into his arms.
She had to hold it together, depend on herself and start the search for her child. The search for a trail nearly two weeks cold. “The next thing I remember is stumbling to my feet, confused. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets to warm them and found the hotel key and a hundred dollars. I could only think of getting back here to my baby. Which doesn’t make sense because they were already leaving.”
“You’d been injured and traumatized. You’re lucky you survived out there.”
“If I hadn’t kept that key, I probably would have died.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach, the chill of that fearful walk washing over her. “Once I got back to the room, I must have slept for an hour or two. Then I woke, unable to remember anything.”
Her every fear had been worse than she’d imagined. She’d been right to question her judgment. She’d trusted and loved a man capable of unspeakable things.
And he had Evan.
How could she even think about baring her heart to anyone again? At the moment, she couldn’t think of anything other than finding her son.
The front door opened. A shaft of frigid air blasted over her as it had that first day she’d woken here. Two uniformed officers stomped snow off their boots. Dee recognized one of them from the day she’d filed her report in Tacoma.
Again, she would have to tell her story, only this time it would be public knowledge. She straightened her spine and squeezed her hands together until they tingled.
Drained to her toes, she didn’t relish baring to the world what a mess she’d made of her life. However, maternal instincts fired her beyond normal endurance. She looked at Jacob and gave a fleeting thought to leaning on him while she talked, but tossed the notion aside. Jacob didn’t need the burden of her troubles, problems even worse than she could have imagined. She would do this the best way for both of them…alone.
“I need to report a kidnapping.”
Two hours later, Jacob watched the cop slam the police cruiser door shut with Chase inside.
The noise jarred all the way through him. The officer planned to scare the spit out of Chase for his own good. Knowing this was the right thing didn’t stop him from wanting to grab Chase by the scruff of the neck and send him home like a kid who’d been caught snitching cookies.
Two hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of cookies, not to mention frightening the hell out of Dee tonight. And what about the lipstick incident on her bathroom mirror? Could that have been Chase, too? But why would he do that to Dee? Deirdre.
His jaw clenched even as he thought of her bastard of an ex-husband. Jacob forced himself to relax. He would deal with all of those feelings later. First, he had to settle Emily.
She slouched outside the door to her suite, the baby monitor clutched in her hand. He didn’t need to step any closer. Even in the dimly lit parking lot he could see well enough the accusation in her eyes, along with unshed tears. She didn’t understand why he’d turned in Chase.
How many more times would Chase let Emily down before she realized she deserved better? But then even Dee, an adult, had been blinded by love. Love for another man.
God, he felt hollowed out inside. He just wanted to give his kid sister a hug she no doubt needed.
Jacob stepped forward, but Emily backed away, into her room, closing the door quietly—but firmly. Maybe she would be calmer, more reasonable, in the morning.
Yeah, right. Jacob shrugged through half the kinks in his shoulders and climbed the porch steps toward Dee, slower than when he’d charged up them earlier.